Youthful Enthusiasm
by Lucinda
Summary: Rupert Giles is studying near the Salisbury Plains, when he meets a mysterious woman named Jeanette.  Crossover with Forever Knight.


Youthful Enthusuasm  
  
author: Lucinda  
rating: pg 13  
main characters: Rupert Giles, Jeanette  
Pairings: Jeanette/Giles  
disclaimer: I do not hold any legal rights to any characters from either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Forever Knight.  
distribution: TNL, Twisting, Paula, Cat if she wants it.  
note: set when Rupert Giles was in his early twenties.  
note 2: making use of Object group #10 at The Quickie Challenge ( I know, this isn't a Willow story, but I just couldn't help but use the list.)   
  
  
Rupert Giles lounged on a bench, ignoring the wild serenity of the landscape around him. He'd seen the Salisbury plains before, after all, and there wasn't that much of a difference. He made a faint noise of dismay as he turned the pages of the book in his hand. "I know they had to write everything back then by hand, but for the mercy of God, couldn't they have got better handwriting from all the effort?"  
  
It was times like this, straining his eyes attempting to decipher a centuries old manuscript, that he hated his destiny. Hated it with the same burning intensity that his eyes used to protest the demands he made of them. Hated this destiny with the same over blown painful sharpness of a finger slashed open by the blood thirsty pages of some of the newer books on demons. Occasionally even with the cold stiffness of limbs gone numb from hours studying obscure texts and volumes.  
  
Carefully, he placed a scrap of ribbon into the pages of the book, oddly reluctant to use something so informal as a note card or a printed bookmark. It just... wouldn't seem right. That managed, he put it into the bag that he was using to carry his books, in the meager company of a book on chemistry and another on behavior trends. He put the bag carefully into the basket attached to his motorcycle. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the sleek, impressively powerful machines that sent women sighing and men scowling - no, this was a second hand scuffed blue bike of moderate power and acceptable handling.  
  
He just meandered around, walking, stretching, telling himself that it would be just a short break. He knew that he was lying to himself. Rupert Giles had no intention of returning to that miserable book. If he walked long enough, then it would be too dark to read... Leaving him the duty of studying the plains, mapping barrow mounds and attempting to see if there was any particular impressions or mystical vibrations or what ever you wanted to call it that he might pick up from any of them. Some Watchers had an affinity for magic, others didn't. This was one of the many things used to test for that affinity.  
  
Closing his eyes, Rupert considered the words of the old Watcher that had told him how to do this. "Go to the plains, and wait for the moon to rise. Then stretch out your senses, listen with your ears and heart and mind."  
  
Right... he closed his eyes, carefully listening, inhaling the scent of recently mown grass, and the gorse flowers, and the promise of rain. And was that a hint of vanilla? Why would there be vanilla?  
  
"What are you listening for?" There was a bit of an accent to the voice, a melodious alto that sent delightful shivers up his spine, and to parts a bit lower as well.  
  
Rupert opened his eyes, turning around quickly, trying to look through the night to see who had spoken. Catching sight of her, he felt everything seem to get tight. She was stunning, there was really no other word to describe her. Dark hair cascaded over nearly bare shoulders, and her sundress, held up only by two narrow straps at the shoulders fluttered in the breeze, caressing lush curves. Her skin looked pale and smooth, and she smelled of vanilla and temptation.   
  
"Just... listening." He felt like wincing, his tongue thick and slow, his usual grip on words nearly deserting him. All sorts of thoughts, images flew through his mind.  
  
This woman was... magnificent, desirable, tantalizing... She was coming closer. Her dark lips had curved into a seductive smile, and her eyes... he could drown in those eyes. Happily.  
  
Rupert found himself walking with her, talking about anything and nothing. Her name was Jeanette. She had once had family near here, but he was gone now... She kept looking at him, these little glances from underneath her lashes, teasing, smoldering looks. Rupert was half afraid that he would burn to ashes from those looks alone... But she would touch him as well, little brushes of her hand against his leg, his hip as they walked, her fingers brushing his hand...  
  
Somehow, her scent, those looks and teasing brushes of her skin against his body, her scent curling around him... Rupert found himself in a small cottage with her, half naked, at the edge of a bed. She stood before him, wearing only this little scrap of underwear, holding something in her hand... an ice cube. Which she proceeded to use against him, ruthlessly. It was the sweetest, most delightful torture he could imagine.  
  
By sunrise, he was wondering if he would survive this encounter. The lovely Jeanette apparently had a near insatiable passion... He was reminded of tales of Succubae, and wondered if this decadently beautiful woman was actually a succubus, come to seduce him into exhaustion and death. But if she was... what more pleasant way to die could there be?  
  
He found himself returning to her, two or three nights a week. It would be as if there was something pulling him to the Plains, and she would be there, with the rising moon. He would go to her, forgetting all worry, all sense of precaution, often even forgetting something as basic as a cross or bottle of water to try to defend himself. She filled his mind, wrapped in around him until she was all he could think of. Jeanette... Her dark eyes, her thick hair that smelled of vanilla...  
  
The small package of vanilla frosting that they'd used the other night during their passions. Spreading the frosting over each other's bodies, and 'devouring' the 'cake' had seemed such a tantalizingly decadent type of foreplay...  
  
The only thing that he couldn't explain away was the bite on his shoulder. He couldn't remember how or when he'd gotten it. Obviously, a vampire, but when? What had prevented him from being drained, killed and possibly turned? Why couldn't he remember it? It was as if his mind was being smothered in the scent of vanilla temptation and a soft voice murmuring French endearments to him...  
  
A small rational part of his mind was trying to whisper warnings, to urge him to slow down. He'd just met her on the plains one night, and now? She had him in the palm of her soft hand. Not quite literally at the moment, God knows he wouldn't be thinking if she did, but... If she wanted him, he was there. Fascinated with her, besotted with her. He knew so little about her past, about her hopes and plans for the future... And he couldn't quite explain why, well, actually, they never seemed to have the time or energy for serious discussion. But it didn't explain why...  
  
He had gone to her again, their pleasures exhausting him. He'd collapsed into the bed, drowsing for a while, his mind tumbling over odd fragments of dreams involving castles and knights, and a lovely maiden in a velvet gown... Jeanette. He didn't quite know what had woke him up. He blinked, his fingers rubbing over the mark on his shoulder, the bite that didn't seem to be healing. It was still raw, barely scabbed over. There were voices in the outer room, Jeanette and someone else, a man.  
  
"You take quite the risk with this mortal, Jeanette." The voice rolled through the air, deep and dark and full of age. It was a cold voice, one devoid of any humanity.  
  
"How so? He is so captivated that he can not even think straight." There was something in her voice, a hint of smugness, a hint of worry.  
  
There was the barely there pad of footsteps, pacing beside the fireplace. "He is of a line of Watchers. You should know the dangers in that, my daughter."  
  
"What if I want to keep him? He is comely, and passionate." Her voice had gone low, almost pleading.  
  
"Would he be ready now? To become one of our family? Or would he regret and revile us as Nicholas now does? Can you say for certain that he would make the change with that passion intact?"  
  
There was a long pause. "I... I do not know."  
  
"Then you must leave him. There are too many eyes here, we must not let them see what remains hidden. Kill him, turn him, or make him forget all of this, it matters little to me. But you can not continue this dalliance." There was a bit of warning in the cold voice, and authority.  
  
"You are right my Sire. As usual." There was sorrow in her sweet voice.  
  
There was a soft swishing noise, like fabric over the floor, and Jeanette came into the room. Rupert looked at her, his eyes full or worry and confusion. Jeanette? What's..."  
  
She drowned out his question with a kiss, her hands running over his chest. "Now is not the time for words, mon ami."  
  
She kissed him again, her nimble fingers and flickering tongue quickly blurring away the faintest thought of worry from his mind as he felt himself drowning in the pleasures and passions of the moment.  
  
Rupert Giles woke up, his neck stiff from sleeping collapsed over one of the books at the table. Rubbing his eyes, he looked around, seeing the stack of biology and anatomy spread before him. 'I must have been trying to study for that test...' He stretched, every muscle protesting the movement. His shoulder hurt, as if... How the bloody hell did that bite get there? Puzzled, he went to go tend his wound.  
  
That finished, he returned to the table, scowling in frustration at his notes. What in the world had been wrong with him? These were a jumbled mess, as if he'd been only half attending his professor. What could possibly have been on his mind?  
  
An image of dark eyes full of secrets, and a hint of vanilla danced at the edges of his mind before vanishing again. Rupert Giles didn't know anyone with dark eyes like that, and certainly not vanilla perfume and dark eyes of secrets and passion. But he wanted to so very badly... He couldn't think of anything. Just his charts on the moonrise over various Salisbury barrow mounds. Apparently the night air was bad for his concentration.  
  
end Youthful Enthusiasm. 


End file.
